MEDVEDEV, MIKHAIL

MEDVEDEV, MIKHAIL (Meyer Yefimiovich Bernstein; 1852–1925), tenor. The son of a rabbi, he appeared as a boy meshorer and was encouraged by shalom aleichem to study singing. While still a pupil at the Moscow Conservatory, he was chosen by Tchaikovsky and Nicolai Rubinstein for the first performance of the role of Lensky in Eugene Onegin (1879). He was a soloist at the Kiev Opera from 1881, at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow from 1891 to 1892, and then at the Petersburg Imperial Opera. He toured the United States (1898–1900) and taught at Moscow, Kiev, and Saratov. Medvedev was admired both for his voice control and for his dramatic interpretations.